Wednesday, June 18, 2014

New publications: chapters from The Survival Hypothesis: Essays on Mediumship

Our Australian colleague Adam J. Rock recently edited and
published an anthology titled The Survival Hypothesis: Essays on Mediumship and Windbridge Institute
researchers contributed two chapters: “Advances in Quantitative Mediumship
Research” (by Julie Beischel) and “Mediumship and its Place within
Parapsychology” (by Julie Beischel, Mark Boccuzzi, and Edwin C. May). Below are
excerpts from those chapters (and their citations).

Excerpt from “Advances in Quantitative Mediumship Research”
by Julie Beischel:

...This review of recent quantitative mediumship research
demonstrates that a standard protocol is not being used during proof-focused
studies of mediums. One group (Schwartz et al.) seemed to demonstrate psi with
the living rather than communication with the deceased; two other research
groups (Roy & Robertson, 2004, and Kelly & Arcangel, 2011) used
multiple protocols with different methods and obtained positive results with some
of them; one group (O’Keefe & Wiseman, 2005) obtained negative results and
a second group (Jensen & Cardeña, 2009) replicated that study and also
obtained negative results. These study protocols included methodological
shortcomings and none of them involved systematically pre-screening the medium
participants prior to data collection to select for mediums actually able to
report accurate and specific information under laboratory conditions. In
addition, the studies did not effectively mimic the natural mediumship
condition in order to examine it as it exists in reality...

In the spring of 2008, I published an extensive description
of how we perform mediumship research at the Windbridge Institute (Beischel,
2007). I provided an extensive How To
regarding reading protocols; the pairing and formatting of readings; blinding;
the screening of medium and sitter participants; and a scoring system involving
both holistic and atomistic methods. I noted that

ideally,
contemporary laboratory- based mediumship research should include two equally
important factors: (a) a research environment that optimizes the mediumship
process for both the medium and the hypothesized discarnate in order to
increase the probability of capturing the phenomenon, if it exists, in a laboratory
setting, and (b) research methods that maximize the experimental blinding of
the medium, the rater, and the experimenter in order to eliminate all conventional
explanations for the reported information and its accuracy and specificity. Together,
these two factors optimize the possibility of achieving positive results while
also controlling for experimental artifacts [p. 40].

One anonymous reviewer commented that the paper would “serve
a standard-setting function for future experiments, requiring investigators who
depart from the methodological requirements to justify their departures.”
Unfortunately, since the publication of this paper, no research groups that I
know of have attempted to replicate these methods in their own labs, and those
who have published mediumship studies using other protocols have failed to
justify these departures...

The primary issues here are effective blinding and
participant screening. Until we, as researchers, control for all sources of
sensory information, even positive results are not convincing. In addition,
negative results with unscreened mediums do not teach us anything about
mediumship; only that the research method used may be flawed...

I strongly recommend that we, as a community, agree to use
the Windbridge Institute methods to perform proof-focused studies or that
someone publish another set of effective methods that we can all agree to use.
Until mediumship researchers adopt a common protocol that has been shown to
achieve positive results while controlling for all sensory sources of
information, the limited time and resources available to study mediums will
continue to be squandered.

Excerpt from: “Mediumship and its Place within Parapsychology” by Julie Beischel, Mark Boccuzzi, and Edwin C. May

...Examining the mediumship process using modern methods and
technologies provides a unique and specific endeavor within the field of
parapsychology. The continued study of mediumship remains important for several
reasons...

In this essay, we addressed the advantages of mediumship
research within parapsychology; these advantages included a specialized
participant population; psi as an integral part of the phenomenon; a collection
of detailed experimental methods; large demonstrable effect sizes; an
opportunity for researchers to confront their own biases; and a unique platform
for addressing the survival of consciousness hypothesis. We also discussed the
practical applications of the results of mediumship research; specifically,
mediumship as a clinical treatment for acute grief and as a means for acquiring
useful forensic information. These discussions have demonstrated the role of
mediumship within parapsychology currently as well as going forward.

Click here to get your copy of The Survival
Hypothesis: Essays on Mediumship today.

Spend the day with parapsychologist Mark Boccuzzi,
psychologist Chad Mosher, PhD, and psychic medium Dave Campbell on Saturday,
July 12, 2014, at The Astrology Store in Glendale, Arizona, at this workshop
designed for novice and seasoned investigators alike. Participants will receive a Certificate of
Completion from the Windbridge Institute.

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About Me

I received my doctorate in Pharmacology and Toxicology with a minor in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Arizona in 2003 where I later served as the William James Post-doctoral Fellow in Mediumship and Survival Research and Co-Director of the VERITAS Research Program until that program closed at the end of 2007. At that time, I co-founded the Windbridge Institute with my husband Mark Boccuzzi where I serve as Director of Research. For more (as well as more personal) info, visit the "Full Bio" page.